Getting involved.

Community is something that requires effort and commitment. A community is a group of individuals that are grouped around a common trait or cause. Commonly when people think about community we think about the neighborhood that we live in. Community is often formed because of our geographical location.

I think there is another type of community that is formed from common passions, hobbies, and interests. This is community with connections, and community with a purpose.

When you think about it there are lots of communities around us. Churches, schools, organizations, book clubs, it goes on and on. All of those communities exist to build connections with people, they have a goal in mind. If you are in a book club you have the goal of reading through books and then critically analyzing and evaluating them to get the most out of what the author had to say. A school is a community, you or your children go to for the purpose of learning and building relationships with fellow peers. The teachers are committed to teaching and the students are (or should be) committed to learning.

When people are committed to their community and get involved in their community, they will be able to accomplish those goals. Take the book club example again. You want to start a book club and you end up getting 50 people to come. Before the meeting though, everyone was supposed to read the first chapter in the chosen book. Its the big day of the first meeting and you are really excited! You have the chapter read, notes all over the margins, and you even read other articles about the book. You gave your 100% into this because you are passionate about it. So, everyone shows up and you ask what they thought about the chapter, and all you get are blank stares from everyone…no one read the chapter! Now you can’t talk with anyone about it, the whole book club is pointless.

Maybe you have been in a group or organization like that, where one person is committed but the rest are not. Its rough. Everyone, or at least the majority has to be involved for the group to succeed.

Community is successful when people are involved. When you have a group, organization, church, or school that has people but no one cares or gets involved, all  you have is a gathering of people. Get involved in your community, and if there isn’t a community that is based around your passions, interests, or hobbies, then start one!

Get involved with the people around you, build relationships, start communities, help your friends out. We will realize that one day our entire city will be a community centered on building communities and relationships with others.

Passionately leading.

Passion.

Are you passionate about something?

To be a leader, you have to be passionate about something. Passion creates the necessary goal that gives you the direction that you need. Once the passion and the direction have been set by you, people can then follow.

Stay true to your passion.

A passion is something that you are almost obsessive about. It brings focus, drive, energy, and purpose. Build your business, blog, speeches, etc. around what you are passionate about. You will feed off of the energy and drive that you passion brings to encourage others to be more passionate.

Passion is infectious.

Everyone knows that its easier to laugh when other people laugh, and when one person starts laughing usually everyone else starts laughing. Passion has the same effect. When you are passionate about something, you begin spreading the message or your passion to others who then become passionate about the same thing and then spread it to their network.

Passion needs to be real.

It needs to be true. Everybody can tell when someone is faking a speech or is trying to show that they are more passionate than they really are. Don’t go after something just because you think its cool. Go after your passion even if that is talking about the different kinds of paper in the world. If you are real and true to your passion people will see that and will become one of your followers or you will encourage them to be a leader in whatever their passion is.

Are you using social media?

The title is a pretty obvious question isn’t it? Pretty much everyone uses social media, and if you are actually reading this blog, you of course are on it right now!

So, why even ask?

Because there is a difference between “using” social media and “being on” social media.

Everybody is “on” Facebook, but are you “using” Facebook?

Small businesses everywhere need to be on as many avenues of social media that they can be.

Facebook, Twitter, Texting, Blogs, Flickr, etc…

Now, I say all of this not meaning that you use social media to try to make as much money as you can off of it. That is the absolute wrong way to go about doing it.

Can you make money off of it? Yes. Is that the point? No.

Social media is an extension of yourself. It is an extension of your company into the world so that you can interact with your friends and fans.

Don’t use social media for yourself.

Let your fans interact on it and talk to you. It’s for building relationships, carrying on conversations, providing feedback, and most importantly customer service. The only type of promoting that should take place in social media is something that will be of a benefit to your friends and fans.

Even with this blog, the purpose is to not promote Chick-fil-A, but rather to talk with you about the community, give tips and insights that we have learned, talk to you about what you want to talk about and not ever shove promotions down your throat trying to force you to give us money.

That’s not what Chick-fil-A is about and that’s not what social media is about.

Social media is about reaching out and building relationships.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a small business or someone who only has Facebook, everyone can use it to reach out to friends and create a community.

Comment below and let me know how you are using social media. Are you taking your passion and building a community around it?